lady thatcher

topper said:
:eek::eek: feck me :eek::eek: thanks for the heads up


thinks..... jeez how did I not know that :lol:
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As Brits, they are the Falkland Islands, only the Argies call them the Malvinas.
You'll be calling the English Channel La Manche next.

Basically what I was trying to say in a nutshell was that the war saved her but could easily have been avoided.
 
scream said:
She was massively behind in the polls at the time of the war.
She had withdrawn the Falklands patrols after pressure from the UN even though the Argies were continually warning they were going to invade.

Technically the Falklands war saved her political neck.
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The Tories were behind but not massively (about 4 or 5% from memory) and there were a huge number of undecideds, so nothing very unusual for a mid term government. In the end the Tory vote dropped slightly at the 83 election but it was the performance of the Libs (or were they Lib-Dems by then? I forget) which destroyed the Labour vote. I can't see that Foot would ever have lead Labour to government. Even more unlikely that Kinnock.

The Falkland might have done her popularity no harm but the idea that the invasion was allowed to happen as an excuse to go to war to improve the polls is laughably silly. The FO screwed up at a time that the Argentinian Junta wanted a popularity boost which prompted them to invade. Thatcher's reaction would have been the same even if she had been told that it was political suicide IMO. This lady's not for turning and all that.
 
Wibble said:
The Tories were behind but not massively (about 4 or 5% from memory) and there were a huge number of undecideds, so nothing very unusual for a mid term government. In the end the Tory vote dropped slightly at the 83 election but it was the performance of the Libs (or were they Lib-Dems by then? I forget) which destroyed the Labour vote. I can't see that Foot would ever have lead Labour to government. Even more unlikely that Kinnock.

The Falkland might have done her popularity no harm but the idea that the invasion was allowed to happen as an excuse to go to war to improve the polls is laughably silly. The FO screwed up at a time that the Argentinian Junta wanted a popularity boost which prompted them to invade. Thatcher's reaction would have been the same even if she had been told that it was political suicide IMO. This lady's not for turning and all that.
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I just chuckle at how people manipulate history to suit their own arguments Wibble - and this is one of the silliest manipulations or more kindly relying on a memory lacking in objectivity
 
I never said that the invasion was allowed to happen to manipulate polls.:rolleyes:

I said that the invasion could have been avoided and the war did her no harm in the polls.
Amazing how people can manipulate what people say in order to hear what they want.
 
scream said:
I never said that the invasion was allowed to happen to manipulate polls.:rolleyes:

I said that the invasion could have been avoided and the war did her no harm in the polls.
Amazing how people can manipulate what people say in order to hear what they want.
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:rolleyes: see below

EZee said:
went to war to win an election...

sank the belgrano when it was in international waters and heading away from the conflict...

as bad as blair imo...
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scream - try reading the posts :rolleyes:
 
And let's not forget her great taste in friends! Gen Pinochet forinstance. Pinochet that she considered a personal friend. Pinochet whose extradition on charges of murder, torture and embezzlemet she opposed. Pinochet the dictator, leader of a military Junta - used to send her choccies. But hey, he was a great believer in free market politics, so let's just ignore all these irritating things like the disappearance not only of his political opponents, but their families too. Her pal. Her confidante. And you want me to admire this person? You have to be kiddig.
 
scream said:
I never said that the invasion was allowed to happen to manipulate polls.:rolleyes:

I said that the invasion could have been avoided and the war did her no harm in the polls.
Amazing how people can manipulate what people say in order to hear what they want.
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So why even say it?
 
redhoop said:
And let's not forget her great taste in friends! Gen Pinochet forinstance. Pinochet that she considered a personal friend. Pinochet whose extradition on charges of murder, torture and embezzlemet she opposed. Pinochet the dictator, leader of a military Junta - used to send her choccies. But hey, he was a great believer in free market politics, so let's just ignore all these irritating things like the disappearance not only of his political opponents, but their families too. Her pal. Her confidante. And you want me to admire this person? You have to be kiddig.
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I for one have not tried to persuade anyone to admire her. If you read my initial post you will see that I just don't think she was all bad but with huge reservations. I also wasn't a fan of how her government handled Northern Ireland.
 
scream said:
Say what?
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Why say anything about the war being an electoral advantage if you aren't making the point that she went to war for that purpose. Unless you want to criticise her for being "lucky" enough to get a war.
 
She took away my milk. I dislike this fact.

Quick question though, would the poverty in the inner cities in the 1980's have happened regardless of the government or was it because of Thatcher and the Tories.

I have always had an inkling that if Callaghan was in charge the 1981 riots would still have occurred.
 
Frosty said:
She took away my milk. I dislike this fact.

Quick question though, would the poverty in the inner cities in the 1980's have happened regardless of the government or was it because of Thatcher and the Tories.

I have always had an inkling that if Callaghan was in charge the 1981 riots would still have occurred.
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actually it wasn't mrs t who was to blame for that
she became education minister after the decision had been made.
 
Wibble said:
Why say anything about the war being an electoral advantage if you aren't making the point that she went to war for that purpose. Unless you want to criticise her for being "lucky" enough to get a war.
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Hang on a minute, I think this has been stretched a little. You're not a journalist for the Sun perchance?

I never said she went to war for that purpose, I purely said it saved her political neck, which I believe it did.

The Argies invaded, we responded, which anyone would have done, and at the end of that particular political term it boosted her in the polls.

Tell me what, precisely, is wrong with those comments?
 
EricaNo7 said:
and shouldn't you have milk provided by your parents?
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Oh God, not this old chestnut again. "Maggie the milk thief." When I was a kid, my milk ration was 1/3 of a pint a day, and a rusk to go with it. Hell, I was even a milk monitor at one point.

My parents were fortunate enough to be able to provide me with milk but there were some kids whose parents could not. That small bottle of milk was vital to them.
 
redhoop said:
Envy? You have to be kidding! She was the architect of 'greed is good' and you only have to look at current public reaction to our wonderful M.P.s to see how well this idea goes down. She took the perfectly reasonable idea of taking responsibility for ones own actions and twisted it into a McCarty-esque vision that equated any socialist ideas with communism and destroyed the notion of community. Just because some Unions (sometimes led by less than inspiring zealots) had become too powerful, she used this an excuse to publicly crush any union that had the temerity to fight for the rights of its workers. The idea of a minimum wage would have been anathema to her as only the rights of employers were important.

It is ironic to see the outcry over the G20 protests that occur today when under the Snatch, police brutality towards normal working people was par for the course (or indeed force) as was locking up any Irish people you didn't like the look of and as for the SPG - well lets not get started on that.

Britain was an ugly, divided, selfish place under her and even though things are not rosy now, I would far rather live in a country that is at least trying to get things right for everyone. When Thatcher's tide came in it brought with it a whole lot of shit from unregulated waste pipes - but you can't have irritating regulations getting in the way of profit, so she can drown in it as far as I'm concerned. Good riddance to bad effluence.
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How refreshing to see someone in this day and age who is clearly passionate about politics!

Not the envy of the world? You clearly don't remember that when she was forced out not only was their a mood of 'we'll have her as leader if you no longer want her' amongst the Americans, but amazing to relate, amongst the Russians too!

Now that is going some, buddy!

Irritating regulations getting in the way of profit? Do me a favour; before Thatcher the hands of the 'engines of prosperity' were so securely tied that few of them bothered getting out of bed. At least not in the UK.

Locking up Irish people you didn't like? I suppose the spectacle of mass, indiscriminate murderers - the cold-eyed makers of not only widows and orphans, but of two and three year old bodies lying in their coffins - currently running education policy and claiming for second homes as MPs when they don't even bother attending the House fills you with joy?

Britain was only then an ugly place eh? I prefer A N Wilson's remark in his most recent work on modern British history; 'The Britain that saw Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and the one which will see her funeral are two utterly different, but equally awful places.'

It's a bloody good job that Thatcher's Britain bequethed enough to this current contemptible rabble to enable them to take twelve years to bring us to the point of becoming supplicants to the IMF. Socialist governments always do in the end.

I look forward to the imminent and this time final demise (no nice tory Mr Blair to dupe the electorate ever again I'm afraid) of the godawful Labour party once the Lib-Dems become the second party after the election.
 
scream said:
She had withdrawn the Falklands patrols after pressure from the UN even though the Argies were continually warning they were going to invade..
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She was withdrawing forces from the South Atlantic because she was cutting back on public spending, and one of the areas targetted was defence. It's all in the Knott Report.

As Fitz points out, the threat to invade the Falklands was there in 1977 too - Callaghan's Labour handled it properly. The way Thatcher 'handled' the situation led to a war - whether that was intentional or incompetence is still up for debate (personally, dislike my hatred of Thatcher, I think it was the latter).
 
scream said:
If only it was that simple. It was made to cost £1,000 per ton to dig it out purely by the stockpiling of new equipment that wasn't used, building multi-million pund cleaning plants that weren't used.. I could go on. And don't tell me it didn't happen because I saw it, I was there.

It doesn't take a genious to figure out that the Polish £100 per ton would quickly rise once our supplies were closed down - something we are now paying for.

The unions had to be controlled granted but by consigning thousands to the scrap heap was not the way to do it. Mining areas still haven't fully recovered.

The woman is pure evil and I for one will not mourn her passing and never will!
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You really think she was 'pure evil'? Do you really understand what evil is?

And state-run industries being heroically profligate and inefficient can scarcely be laid at the door of Conservative economic policy. I see that the Labour party has changed not one jot or tittle of the policies you effect to despise.

Britain was fecked. Major surgery was required. Michael Foot et al were a million miles from knowing what to do. She won three landslide elections. Preumably you are right and the electorates all those years were wrong.

I believe that is the basis of totalitarianism.
 
ThatOldRedMagic said:
You really think she was 'pure evil'? Do you really understand what evil is?
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Actually yes I do.

The way she destroyed the area I live, an area that still hasn't fully recovered gives me that feeling.

I am entitled to feel about her anyway I choose, and I hate her, plain and simple (and yes I do know what that word means too)
 
scream said:
She was massively behind in the polls at the time of the war.She had withdrawn the Falklands patrols after pressure from the UN even though the Argies were continually warning they were going to invade.

Technically the Falklands war saved her political neck.
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Oh dear oh dear...
 
scream said:
Hang on a minute, I think this has been stretched a little. You're not a journalist for the Sun perchance?

I never said she went to war for that purpose, I purely said it saved her political neck, which I believe it did.

The Argies invaded, we responded, which anyone would have done, and at the end of that particular political term it boosted her in the polls.

Tell me what, precisely, is wrong with those comments?
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More to the point what was the point of those comments?
 
topper said:
yeh it really is pathetic :lol:
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Are you her love child or something?

She was behind in the polls, albeit not massively.
The war did boost her popularity ask Mori and Gallup they'll corroborate it.

And technically, history has said that the Falklands saved her.

Again what is pathetic?
Maybe the 3.6 million she had out of work instead of the 2 million she inherited, now that is pathetic.
 
topper said:
:lol: ffs are you in the real world - so Blair and Brown didn´t/don´t have freedom of choice
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I never said I didn't also blame Major, and Blair, and Brown. But the issue you raised was whether Thatcher's policies were to blame for the mess we're currently in. And the answer is yes, because we're still following them.
 
scream said:
It's called an opinion.

What's the point of yours?
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A rather pointless one. More a slogan than a discussion. As I said I vote Labour but I think Thatcher is a far more complex subject for discussion than the "She's a cnut" type statements suggest.

And my point is actual discussion of political history?
 
Wibble said:
A rather pointless one. More a slogan than a discussion. As I said I vote Labour but I think Thatcher is a far more complex subject for discussion than the "She's a cnut" type statements suggest.

And my point is actual discussion of political history?
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I agree (did I really say that):D

Having lived through her time I don't recall it being very good thats all.

The comapny I started at had 4,500 people employed when I started and only 1,500 when I left, all during Maggie's reign.

I do think people paint too high a picture of her, it depends where you were brought up during her time I guess.
 
ThatOldRedMagic said:
How refreshing to see someone in this day and age who is clearly passionate about politics!

Not the envy of the world? You clearly don't remember that when she was forced out not only was their a mood of 'we'll have her as leader if you no longer want her' amongst the Americans, but amazing to relate, amongst the Russians too!

Now that is going some, buddy!

Irritating regulations getting in the way of profit? Do me a favour; before Thatcher the hands of the 'engines of prosperity' were so securely tied that few of them bothered getting out of bed. At least not in the UK.

Locking up Irish people you didn't like? I suppose the spectacle of mass, indiscriminate murderers - the cold-eyed makers of not only widows and orphans, but of two and three year old bodies lying in their coffins - currently running education policy and claiming for second homes as MPs when they don't even bother attending the House fills you with joy?

Britain was only then an ugly place eh? I prefer A N Wilson's remark in his most recent work on modern British history; 'The Britain that saw Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and the one which will see her funeral are two utterly different, but equally awful places.'

It's a bloody good job that Thatcher's Britain bequethed enough to this current contemptible rabble to enable them to take twelve years to bring us to the point of becoming supplicants to the IMF. Socialist governments always do in the end.

I look forward to the imminent and this time final demise (no nice tory Mr Blair to dupe the electorate ever again I'm afraid) of the godawful Labour party once the Lib-Dems become the second party after the election.
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Hmm - just a few comments to remind me how absolutely fabulous it is to not have the likes of Thatcher and her lackeys polluting the airwaves with such silliness. My, admittedly, emotional and overwhelmingly negative response to Snatch is as strong today as it was then, and quotes like these simply remind me how wonderful it is that we have seen the back of her.

I don't know where you live, but I live in Britain. It may not be perfect, but I love the place - its full of great, fair-minded, funny, generous people. Yes there are some arses out there, and things are tough just now but there is no way I am buying into a media-hyped hysterical view of my country being a disaster. How could the land of the mighty MUFC be an awful place? :devil:
 
ralphie88 said:
I never said I didn't also blame Major, and Blair, and Brown. But the issue you raised was whether Thatcher's policies were to blame for the mess we're currently in. And the answer is yes, because we're still following them.
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:rolleyes: so with your logic it isn´t Thatchers fault as her policies were copies of earlier governments initiatives :lol:


er guv blame this lot


1976 James Callaghan Labour
1974 Harold Wilson Labour
1970 Edward Heath Conservative
1964 Harold Wilson Labour
1963 Sir Alec Douglas-Home Conservative
1957 Harold Macmillan Conservative
1955 Sir Anthony Eden Conservative
1951 Winston Churchill Conservative
1945 Clement Attlee Labour
1940 Winston Churchill Conservative (Coalition Government)
1937 Neville Chamberlain Conservative (National Government)
1935 Stanley Baldwin Conservative (National Government)
1931 James Ramsay MacDonald National Labour (National Government)
1929 James Ramsay MacDonald Labour
1924 Stanley Baldwin Conservative
1924 James Ramsay MacDonald Labour
1923 Stanley Baldwin Conservative
1922 Andrew Bonar Law Conservative
1916 David Lloyd George Liberal (Coalition Government)
1908 Herbert H. Asquith Liberal (Coalition Government, 1915)
1905 Henry Campbell-Bannerman Liberal
1902 Arthur Balfour Conservative
1895 Marquess of Salisbury Conservative
1894 Earl of Rosebery Liberal
1892 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1886 Marquess of Salisbury Conservative
1886 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1885 Marquess of Salisbury Conservative
1880 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1874 Benjamin Disraeli Conservative
1868 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1868 Benjamin Disraeli Conservative
1866 Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby Conservative
1865 John Russell, Earl Russell Liberal
1858 Viscount Palmerston Liberal
1858 Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby Conservative
1855 Viscount Palmerston Liberal
1852 George Hamilton-Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen Conservative
1852 Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby Conservative
1846 Lord John Russell Whig
1841 Sir Robert Peel Tory
1835 William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne Whig
1834 Sir Robert Peel Tory
1834 Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington Tory
1834 William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne Whig
1830 Charles Grey, Earl Grey Whig
1828 Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington Tory
1827 Frederick Robinson, Viscount Goderich Tory
1827 George Canning Tory
1812 Robert Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool Tory
1809 Spencer Perceval Tory
1807 William Bentinck, Duke of Portland Tory
1806 William Grenville, Lord Grenville Whig
1804 William Pitt, the Younger Tory
1801 Henry Addington Tory
1783 William Pitt, the Younger Tory
1783 William Bentinck, Duke of Portland Tory
1782 William FitzMaurice, Earl of Shelburne Whig
1782 Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham Whig
1770 Frederick North, Lord North Tory
1767 Augustus Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton Whig
1766 William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham Whig
1765 Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham Whig
1763 George Grenville Whig
1762 John Stuart, Earl of Bute Tory
1757 Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle Whig
1756 William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire Whig
1754 Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle Whig
1743 Henry Pelham Whig
1742 Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington Whig
1721 Sir Robert Walpole Whig
 
crappycraperson said:
Funny how pro-Thatcher posters have side stepped this one.
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Well I am of course anti Thatcher and I sidestepped it too.
Much as I hate the woman, there is no compelling evidence that she was pro-apartheid.
She was certainly pro-Seth Effrikken and tended to put business ahead of any moral consideration......she famously said there was no such thing as "society" and David Camerons "touchy feely hug a hoody Tory party" is still reeling from that evil remark.
She would have done business with anyone...anywhere to sate the greed of the Tory Party and her friends in the City.

In those days ......it was not necessary to be a rich bastard to be a Tory voter. You only had to be a greedy bastard.
 
topper said:
so with your logic it isn´t Thatchers fault as her policies were copies of earlier governments initiatives
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Er... no.

Thatcherism departed completely from the post-war census style of government. Major/Blair/Brown all followed the Thatcherist mode of governing, not the post-war consensus. This is pretty basic stuff really.
 
The contributions of most our CE forum heavyweights are sadly absent from what would otherwise have been a fascinating thread.

Bury, nickm, Plech, spin, Chris H; pull your fingers out.
 
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